Ukraine Wins $118 Million Contract To Supply 96 APCs To Thailand

[Jai Dee]

Ukraine wins $118 million contract to supply 96 APCs to Thailand

Ukraine has won a $118 million contract to supply 96 armored personnel carriers to Thailand, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said Aug. 16.

Yanukovych told reporters that Ukraine outbid eight countries, including Canada, China and Russia that had also taken part in the competition to supply the Thai armored forces, according to his press service.

He did not say when the vehicles, called BTR-3E1s, would be shipped.

Thai Defense Minister Boonrawd Somtas said last week that the army favored the Ukrainian vehicles because it was the cheapest of the nine bidders.

"The Canadian vehicles are excellent, but we would get only half of the 96 vehicles we will get from Ukraine. It's like buying Japanese cars over European cars," Somtas was quoted as saying by the Bangkok Post newspaper.

After the 1991 Soviet breakup, Ukraine inherited a sizable weapons industry and it remains a major producer of arms including missiles, aircraft and tanks.

Source: KYIV Post - 16 August 2007

[cdnvic]

Will they be ready in time to oust the winner of the next election?

[Mid]

.

[ilyushin]

When they deploy these units, I wonder just how long they will be operative? Lowest bid and highest

[Prakanong]

So is it the standard 10% to the guy in charge plus other payments to his minions???

I am doing my MBA with a Singapore arms salesman and he has some stories about Thailand and having to deal with them

[sriracha john]

the vehicles, called BTR-3E1s

================================================================================

KYIV – Sources in Bangkok said Monday that Thailand will strengthen its military with the purchase in a government-to-government deal of 96 BTR-3E1 armored personnel carriers designed and produced by the state-owned Kharkiv Morozov plant at Kharkiv, Ukraine. The deal is valued at four billion Thai baht, the equivalent of approximately 670 million Ukrainian hryvnia.

Military sources in Thailand said the choice of Ukraine’s APC's was based primarily on price and the fact that Ukraine will continue making spare parts for its vehicles.

In addition to the APCs, Thailand will internally build 10 bomb-disposal robots, which along with the APCs will be used primarily to protect its troops in the troubled far south of the country.

- The Ukrainian Observer

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Easy to see that the pickup trucks in use down there just don't cut it...

Thai soldiers examine the wreckage of a pickup truck which was hit by a bomb while their colleagues were riding on for a morning patrol in Yala province, southern Thailand, June 15, 2007. Seven Thai soldiers were killed in the attack.

- Associated Press

[A_Traveller]

For those who are interested Kharkiv Morozov

This was discussed in the 'Thailand Oldest Party thread'

Regards

[Martin]

Yet they couldn't find the money to print the new charter in the language that the people down South could read.

Tells us something, doesn't it?

[nonthaburial]

So how many frozen chickens = $118m ??

[cclub75]

So how many frozen chickens = $118m ??

And how many Plavix tablets for 118 millions USD ?

More seriously... It's the sword/shield principle. Insurgents in the south will use bigger devices...

[Martin]

I cannot see the need, in the context of the South, for all the expensive engineering that is involved in having 8X8 drive, nor in having the expensive armanent shown on the vehicle in the picture.

Basically, troops on a mission to win the hearts and minds of their fellow citizens need nothing more militarily-sophisticated than an armoured bus.

Maybe the Prime Minister, who has declared himself to be a champion of Sufficiency, should be having a word with the Commander of the Army about being seen to be frugal in the deployment of the public funds supplied to him.

Locally-produced vehicles, suitably adapted by local labour, would suffice; and cost less than a tenth of the figures quoted.

[sriracha john]

Yet they couldn't find the money to print the new charter in the language that the people down South could read.

Tells us something, doesn't it?

Yes, it tells us that these vehicles, which have been in the procurement pipeline since 2001 and continually delayed and postponed during the Thaksin administration, are long overdue... and that an untold number of Thai soldiers have died because of that delay.

[sriracha john]

So how many frozen chickens = $118m ??

Thankfully that idiotic and insane Thaksin-ism is gone.

Edited August 17, 2007 by sriracha john

[Plus]

Soldiers need protection, period.

Thailand doesn't produce armoured pickups and US Bradleys are far more expensive, I suspect.

Consitution draft not translated in Malay dialect - nothing unusual, it's not an official language yet.

[sriracha john]

So how many frozen chickens = $118m ??

And how many Plavix tablets for 118 millions USD ?

More seriously... It's the sword/shield principle. Insurgents in the south will use bigger devices...

Easier said than done. Take another look at the photo of the APC.

They will provide infinitely better protection than an old Isuzu pickup... which is what Thaksin felt was good enough and what the current government inherited.

The increase in the defense budget is long overdue having been stripped to the bone during the six years that Thaksin ruled. It's not surprising that there has been a backlash and pendulum swing in budget allocation. And no, not of all is justified. It is, however, understandable to a large degree, if seen in this context.

Edited August 17, 2007 by sriracha john

[Mid]

The increase in the defense budget is long overdue having been stripped to the bone during the six years that Thaksin stripped. It's not surprising that there has been a backlash and pendulum swing in budget allocation. And no, not of all is justified. It is, however, understandable, if seen it's in proper context.

understand your an old soldier SJ ,

there ARE far more important issues to be addressed FIRST .

[sriracha john]

Tell that to the soldiers' widows and children... current and very near future ones...

Tell them to just hang on... that maybe in another six years their husbands and fathers will have the protection they need.

Very few, if any, issues in Thailand are more pressing than the Deep South and proper equipment has an important role to play in its containment/resolution.

[Mid]

leave it off SJ ,

an important role is correct ,

behind EDUCATION and HEALTH .

the next successful military solution WILL be the first one ...........................................

[sriracha john]

Certainly the military is not only the solution to resolving the crisis... it was not implied; only that this specific hardware purchase can save lives the day they are shipped in.

Photos like the one I posted above are huge motivating factors on both sides, the perpetrators and the victims.

Edited August 17, 2007 by sriracha john

[Mid]

peace

[sriracha john]

not war

[Plus]

While the rest of the country battles over consitution no one has ever reads, soldiers are killed by dozens everyday in the South.

There is a war down there.

Let's not pretend that daily bombings and ambushes do not exist.

[geriatrickid]

Although education and health are indeed primary issues, the unfortunate aspect of the southern troubles is that teachers, civil servants and health care providers are being murdered on a weekly basis. For those that believe that the government should send medicine or books first, tell it to all the teachers and health care workers that demanded protection. You can't provide health care or teach if those people are killed. Almost all foreign health care workers working on major projects have been pulled from the south and research & treatment projects have been cancelled. Peace is nice, but keeping people safe and alive is also important.

My objection to the Ukrainian purchase is that the design is out of date by about 5-10 years. Flat bottom vehicles offer minimal protection against IEDs. (That's why the Bradleys are just as useless). Everyone knows that a V shaped vehicle is best suited to theaters of war where IEDs are used. When the Canadians started getting blown up en masse in Afghanistan despite their LAVs and Coyotes, they dragged their German Leopard tanks out of mothballs and begged and borrowed South African built Nyalas from the Dutch (i believe). The US had the same experience in Iraq where the much touted Stryker with its flat bottom was a rolling coffin. It's why General Dynamics was given rush orders to build its rolling V designs. There are only a handful of manufacturers of battlefield proven IED resistant vehicles with 2 in the USA, 1 in Canada, 1 in Israel and of course the South Africans.

Pennywise, pound foolish decision.

I can guarantee that there will be an attrition rate of at least 10-25% once the vehicles are put in use. When the vehicles are lost, the military will be hesitant to use them for fear of further losses and the purchase will have been useless.

[Plus]

I understand that this deal goes back to the times when no one knew what IED were.

Besides Thailand has no realistic chance of getting advanced vehicles from those five manufacturers. It's either the price or the waiting list or something else.

[Martin]

The more that I look at this vehicle, in the context of the South, the more it looks like a counter-productive waste of a lot of money.

This is a wheeled tank, and only capable of carrying soldiers from within a fortress to a field of assault (even if it doesn't succumb to an IED).

But the South is not a battlefield in a war (though the army may like such verbiage, as battlefield manoeuvres are their speciality).

The South has a "Truth and Reconciliation" requirement, and uniformed armed warriors in tanks are unsuited.

Although they are by no means exact parallels, there are lessons to be learnt from the Vietnam War, Northern Ireland and Iraq.

The South needs both 'sides' to sit down together, recognise that the Brits cocked about where they drew the border at the partitioning of Pattani, and recognise that neither the representatives of the Government in Bangkok nor the local folk can re-write history, so they need to come to agreement about a sensible scenario for the future and work towards it.

Sending in outsiders, who don't even speak the local languge, as teachers etc. hasn't worked. And 'one more push' won't make it work.

This is a century in which words like 'international', 'satellite television', 'internet' and 'devolution' are coming into both grassroots and establishment vocabularies. Methods, and their associated equipment, of the last century need to be looked at sceptically, not blindly deployed.

There is a school of thought that Thaksin recognised that the police were more appropriate to deploy in the South, and some Generals didn't like that. Yet some of a previous generation of Generals seem to have been very successful with their "Greening of Isaan" use of army personnel to win hearts and minds of local people by showing the way to a better-looking future than the Communists could offer.

How many little Kubota tractors would US$118m buy?

The lads that Thailand conscripts from the villages to do National service would probably prove much more effective, at bringing peace to the South, if they were equipped with those than they will be by trundling around in this piece of expensive weaponry.

[Mid]

well I've waited ,

use some of that salary budget .........................................

[roietjimmy]

How many little Kubota tractors would US$118m buy?

About 10,000 give or take depending on model.

[expatwannabe]

More than $1 mil each for those 8-wheeled APCs?

That's almost as much as older Bradley costs.

The Thais got ripped off - by probably 30-40%.

Edited August 18, 2007 by expatwannabe

[bingobongo]

great, just what your police state needs......more armored personnel carriers

how else can they subjugagte the disenfranchised other than thru force

well done boys in green, well done

[Mid]

More than $1 mil each for those 8-wheeled APCs?

That's almost as much as older Bradley costs.

The Thais got ripped off - by probably 30-40%.

one doubts these are currently available ............................